Mitchell Todd inquest: rugby star was over limit

An inquest has heard Mitchell Todd was over the limit at the time of the crash. Picture: Getty

EMMA SWORD

23:04Tuesday 05 February 2013

A SCOTLAND under-20 international rugby player was more than twice the legal limit and driving without his seat belt when he died in a car crash last year, an inquest heard yesterday.

• Inquest hear of “promising” rugby career ahead

• Verdict of accidental death recorded

Mitchell Todd, who also played for Nottingham Rugby Club, was found in the car in a field near the village of Normanton-on-the-Wolds in Nottinghamshire last August by a member of the public.

Yesterday, an inquest into his death heard the 21-year-old’s blood-alcohol reading was 172mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. The legal driving limit is 80mg.

Empty bottles of wine and cans of beer were found in the vehicle, the inquest at Nottingham Town Hall heard.

A post-mortem examination confirmed that Todd, who represented Scotland under-20s in last season’s Six Nations and featured in the Junior World Cup, died as a result of a catastrophic brain injury.

Resuming the inquest into the player’s death, assistant deputy coroner Jane Gillespie heard that Todd had drunk excessively after an all-day training event with Nottingham Rugby Club on 14 August before being found in the early hours of the following morning.

Detective Constable Mark Henshaw told the inquest the young player, who was described by his club as an “exceptional talent”, drank free wine and beer at a meal at the end of the training event. He then took a taxi into Nottingham city centre, where he continued to drink beer and spirits with his teammates until 2am.

The rugby club had warned players not to drive after the event but an intoxicated Todd returned to his car.

The officer told the inquest it was not known why Todd, who lived in Coventry, had been driving where the crash happened, as he knew no-one in that area.

Residents described hearing a loud thud at around 3:15am and seeing a small, dark-coloured vehicle travelling at speed.

Todd’s mother, Delia Todd, wiped tears from her eyes as Pc Robert Lloyd, a forensics collision investigator, described the moments before the crash that claimed her son’s life.

The officer told the hearing the Citroen had been travelling over the 40mph speed limit when Todd lost control of his vehicle on a left-hand bend.

He then drove on the wrong side of the road, clipping road signs and trees as he careered across grass verges and kerbs, before failing to take a right-hand bend and crashing through a fence and hedge into a field.

Pc Lloyd told the hearing the car was found to have no defects, but Todd had not been wearing his seat belt.

“If he had been wearing his seat belt, I think there would have been a very great difference to the outcome. He would have been shaken up but would not have sustained the serious injuries which he did,” the officer said.

Summing up the evidence, Miss Gillespie described Todd, who had just finished a degree in sports therapy, as a rugby player with a promising career in front of him.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, the coroner said: “This is a sad, unnecessary and preventable waste of a talented young life and I very much hope that valuable lessons are learnt as a result of this tragedy.

“I find that the combination of intoxication, excess speed and Mitchell’s failure to wear a seat belt resulted in this terrible incident and the catastrophic brain injury suffered by Mitchell, which he simply could not survive.

“Taking into account all of the evidence available to me, my verdict is one of accidental death.”

Todd qualified for Scotland through his Edinburgh-born father and had also represented Scottish Exiles from under-17 to under-20 level. He won ten Scotland under-20 caps and played in the IRB Junior World Championship.

Rob Brierley, the Scottish Rugby Union’s performance development manager for Exiles, said: “Mitch was a quiet, sensitive bloke with a real steely determination, never more evident than on the rugby pitch.

“He was a real athlete, somebody who was late to the game and was developing all the time.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.